Slave in chains

Slave in chains © National Maritime Museum, London

Repro ID: E9148

Description: This unfinished oil painting from the early 19th century communicates a sense the terrible despair and alienation felt by the millions of Africans forcibly transported to the Americas and sold into a life of slavery. Africans were captured from across a huge area of western Africa and marched to the coast. On the coast, their African captors negotiated with the captains of European slave ships and exchanged them for goods. This process could take many months. Once the captain had completed his inhuman transactions, he embarked on the infamous ‘middle passage’ to the New World.

Creator: British School

Date: c. 1820

Credit line: National Maritime Museum, London, Michael Graham-Stewart slavery collection